nights like this.

February 24, 2013

Nights like this one linger in your throat. Nights like this, everything lingers. Even a smell of grassy chill through the open window, and the faraway thrum of city electricity lingers loftily, and the dying of a sunset lasts and lasts and lasts and makes you feel sad. The way silhouettes of tree tops are back-lit by a warm glow of amber that smudges into a feathery blue, then becomes deeper, scattering stars. It fades slowly, painfully slowly. Nights like this, the sunset hurts and you can feel it in your skin, curving your rib bones inward into your lungs and hollow, echoing chest.
Nights like this one ebb and wane like a goodbye, like every now and then the universe combines as a smooth, peaceful evening with melancholy in the skyline to remind us how small we are. How lonely each and every one of us are. To remind us we aren’t children anymore. That our dreams did not develop and grow with our bodies, and will only be real in theory, in the dark, in the night. That we aren’t young in spirit anymore, either. Nights like this remind you that your mother is getting old and will some day leave you. That she cannot be your best friend forever, and cannot save you from yourself. She’s grown weak over time with the same nostalgia you are feeling now.
Nights like this, your soul is searching and you look into the reflection of the sleepy sun in your dog’s trusting eyes, and the swelling of sadness fills every pore, cavern and cavity. You cannot explain why. Maybe you’d failed him. The swelling becomes so thick, you breathe like water, like empty tears. Even the cicadas are crying, and the vibrations linger, weighting your limbs with the quiet.
You would give anything to go back a few years, just a little while. When she was young and you were younger, and evenings didn’t feel like sorrow. To be able to stop, look around and feel it, before time changed it. To have something to hold onto that feels familiar, feels safe. To go back to when lonely was temporary and every day felt like potential, and to appreciate the naivety you took for granted.
Nights like this you’d do anything to return to a state of before. Before time became cold, before you gave up what you did not deserve, before your chest ached so profoundly it colored the very evening sky, and when you knew comfort and security, and when a sunset was just a sunset.